Railway model musings and developments

Tag Archives: BRM

Last weekend I visited a model exhibition I have been wanting to go to for years: The National Festival of Railway Modelling in Peterborough.

Finding myself with a weekend with ‘no plans’ I thought I would take the long drive from Swindon (not actually as long as I thought) and take a look.

The first layout I looked at was the N-Gauge ‘Grange-Over-Sands’, with its well represented saltmarsh habitat spanning the front of the layout. I spend a lot of time in my day job studying saltmarsh habitat, so I paid special attention to the little creeks and different patches of vegetation.

I think ‘Oulton TMD’ (OO-Gauge) was one of my favourite models at the exhibition. It was such a large model and I liked how it was a busy layout, but didn’t look cluttered. I could have spent much longer looking at that one.

‘Ludlow’ was probably my favourite layout of the show. An N-gauge layout with plenty of sprawling landscape and an assortment of traffic running through the valley on the main line. I really liked the track plan of this layout and it has given me some ideas for a future N-gauge project.

‘Up The Line’ was a very interesting WWI layout built in 16mm narrow gauge. The sound of the distant thump of bombs added to the ambience of this model. I particularly liked the ambulance train (ambience and an ambulance in so many words).

Another N-gauge model I really liked was ‘Barton Road’ set around London somewhere in the late 60s and included plenty of west country stock (my favourite). It is built in a fascinating ‘T’ shaped arrangement with the off scene fiddle yard placed in the centre of the ‘T’. This allows trains to run off scene at two ends of the ‘T’ and then stock cassettes are swapped to each off-scene area. I really like the arrangement, but, for me, it might need a bit too much concentration to control at a show.

I also have to mention the BRM Magazine project layout Ruston Quays, what a lovely little model. It shows how much you can do with limited space.

I got the chance to see a couple of DJM models that had passed me by in my months away from modelling. I saw the Class 71 and would like to keep telling myself I don’t need one in my life, but it looked and sounded great. I also saw the new J94 Austerity which also looks like a brilliant model. There is a nice yellow NCB one that was previously an RMweb exclusive and is now being sold by Kernow (it would look great with a bit of weathering).

So all in all, an enjoyable show. It seemed that every time I filmed a train it cast a curse on the tracks and things would crash or stall, but with a bit of editing I managed to get a decent film out of my footage. Here it is:

Following a recent article in BRM by Phil Parker, I was inspired to complete my little 009 sentinel. I have constructed the ‘protected’ variant. Most of the work was already completed a few years ago, but I needed to make some adjustments to the rubber band drive (to stop the band rubbing on the supporting etch) and I needed to glue down the cab.

A spent a few minutes adjusting the chassis braces to keep the body square and there we have it.

Two weeks ago me and my Dad visited the Festival of British Railway Modelling in Doncaster.

It was our first visit and we both really enjoyed the day. The best thing about the show was the number of big layouts (in a UK context), which allowed some good length trains to be run.

Wisbech and Upwell Trams

My interests in the Wisbech and Upwell Railway were well catered for with some interesting discussions about how to model the tramway version of the Drewry tram (see separate post). The highlight for me was the Y10 ‘super sentinel’ shunting around Happisburgh Goods. This was an odd coincidence as I recently begun development of this loco using a 3D modelling programme, thus I took the opportunity to take pictures from all angles (the pictures of the top being a God-send).

O-gauge Y10 ‘Super Sentinel’ on Happisburgh Goods

Grasslands

I was also interested in the disturbed grassland and ephemeral vegetation modelled on Kensal Green (sorry… went all ‘ecologist’ there). Their grassland just seem to have something that my current efforts don’t seem to have. I think it is do with the thicker layer of decayed vegetation beneath the current growing stems (closer to the buildings). I think I will experiment and see if I can improve mine.

Disturbed and ephemeral grassland on the 4mm Kensal Green

Black Country Blues was also looking impressive with some great modelling of recently disturbed vegetation, very much the colours, structures and ‘feel’ of the surrounds of home ‘back when’ (Me and Dad thought we recognised the view from Barr Beacon).

Purchases

I was in a wallet-burning mood and was quite set on buying a D11 Director, which I managed to acquire from one of the cheaper vendors.

D11 Director from Bachmann

Unfortunately for said wallet, I then came across another subject I am interested in: a T9 in Southern Green with ‘British Railways’ on the tender. Opening the box I was quite surprised to find a colonial star on the front (apparently this was the designate royal train). This wasn’t evidently clear from the box and it would be nice if Hornby considered expanding beyond the traditional ‘side profile’ photos on their model-boxes. I also find them not the most flattering images, but that’s me. The colonial star didn’t of course amount to the surprise of finding an elephant on the side of my Heljan BR Blue Falcon when I bought it a couple of years ago!